


the well

by phyripo



Category: Hetalia: Axis Powers
Genre: Alternate Universe - Coffee Shops & Cafés, F/F, Magic, Urban Fantasy, With A Twist
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-09-07
Updated: 2017-09-07
Packaged: 2018-12-21 11:51:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,899
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11943588
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/phyripo/pseuds/phyripo
Summary: Mei is keenly aware that she is living out the plot of a thousand fanfictions when she and the cute girl who is a regular at the coffee shop where she works get into some sort of semi-flirtatious misnaming contest. She's got the plot all figured out.That is, until an old man dumps a mysterious briefcase on them and she getswaymore than she ever bargained for.





	the well

**Author's Note:**

  * For [egg_oeuf](https://archiveofourown.org/users/egg_oeuf/gifts).



> Happy birthday egg child this is for yo u
> 
> The magical side of this story is based on the Harry Potter universe but it's not _actually_ that universe. A lot of things are the same, but also quite some things are different! It's probably a universe where the Harry Potter series doesn't exist though.  
>  Anyone who's read more of my writing has pRObably seen the name Havenbridge for a city before. Just assume it's a different one. I'm just very unoriginal is all :') The city itself is pretty much made up of different parts of different cities I've been to before! It's got bits of London, Luxembourg, Warsaw, Paris, Prague...
> 
> FEATURING  
> Mei-hui Lin - Taiwan  
> Angélique Verlaque- Seychelles  
> 

The first time it happened was an honest mistake, and Mei thinks she can hardly be blamed for mishearing the girl’s name in the bustle of the coffee shop, especially after the long day she already had behind her by then. She gets people’s names on orders wrong more often. No one ever gets worked up about it like this woman did, pointing at a small nametag on her chest agitatedly, as if Mei was supposed to have seen that.

Okay, so it was Angélique and not Monique. She got her iced latte, so what did it matter?

The second time was still an accident. Mostly. Mei can’t be expected to remember every customer, that’s just common sense. So, yes, she wrote Angeline that time, but it was late again, and she had been tired and had _not_ deserved the angry rant about listening, or, again, looking at the nametag. Like Mei is in the habit of looking at people’s chests.

The third time that _Angélique_ came in, again on an evening when it was almost completely dark outside even though it was the middle of summer, Mei is mildly ashamed to say that she wrote down Amélie on purpose, but instead of the angry rebuttal she was half-expecting, the woman squinted at her nametag.

“Thanks, Meh,” she said, with a lopsided smile.

That marked the start of some weird ritual.

Angélique comes in two evenings a week. Mei has a theory about her working somewhere close by and stopping by Peak on her way home. She certainly looks tired most days, but she still smiles at Mei, dark eyes crinkling up.

She has amazingly curly hair, most of the time pulled back from her face by colorful bandanas or into ponytails or messy braids. Mei expands her theory to include the guess that she works somewhere where hygiene is important. Maybe a bakery – she knows there are plenty of those in this part of the city. She’d say a hospital, but the only hospital in Havenbridge is all the way over near her own university, on the outskirts of the city. She volunteers there during the school year.

Nevertheless, Angélique comes by regularly, orders her iced drinks, and mispronounces Mei’s name in increasingly creative ways until it’s unrecognizable. Mei, in return, finds stranger and stranger ways to spell ‘Angélique’ wrong, although she does start drawing little smiley faces on the cup after a while, and hiding her face behind the machines when Angélique winks at her. She would be lying if she said she doesn’t look forward to their meetings.

Her coworkers seem amused by her insistence on taking the little-desired evening shifts, and Mei tries not to think about how she brushes her hair twice before she braids it on Tuesday and Thursday evenings.

Well, okay, maybe she has a tiny bit of a crush on Angélique, but beyond their semi-flirtatious misnaming contest, their relationship is purely professional. Mei has no idea what Angélique does still, or anything other about her than her name and smile and the massive amount of freckles dotted over the warm brown skin of her face and arms. Although she’s been on the verge of asking something multiple times – _where do you work, where did you get that bag, do you live nearby_ – Mei always finds herself shying away.

Angélique usually sits down to drink her iced drinks, but she does so quite quickly, so Mei never has the opportunity to pull any cliché moves she’s read about in fanfictions, like going to wipe down a table close to her and _casually_ asking about her day or something like that. And that’s fine, really. She feels some sort of kinship anyway, if just over drinks and – probably – long work days.

One Tuesday evening in early August, the routine-of-sorts is abruptly disrupted.

“Iced cappuccino for Amalia,” Mei announces, quite unnecessarily, since Angélique is the only one in the shop at the moment.

“Thanks, Nero,” the woman in question replies, taking the cup and smiling fondly at the flower Mei drew on the plastic. It matches the one on her own nametag.

Mei quickly hides behind the counter again and pretends to busy herself cleaning the coffee machine while Angélique ambles over to sit on a couch near the window, stretching her legs out in front of herself. Curiously, Mei has noticed, she never checks her phone or anything like that – she just sits there and relaxes, brown leather bag at her feet, head bobbing to the music. She does so now, tapping her fingers on—

_CRASH._

Both of them spring up at the sudden noise from near the open doors. Mei drops her cloth when she sees what caused it. Angélique is standing up in the corner of her vision.

An older man in a striking red jacket and odd, checkered pants is sprawled on his back on the floor of the coffee shop, having taken a chair down in his fall. He is tightly holding on to a briefcase with both arms and breathing heavily, eyes closed. Oh, god, is he wounded? Is he having some kind of attack?

“Sir!” Mei rushes over to him. Angélique does the same. “Sir, are you—” Well, no, obviously he isn’t alright. Mei is already fumbling her phone out of her pocket to call an ambulance when the man’s eyes open. He looks up at both of them.

“Ah – you,” he rasps. Angélique squats next to him as he mutters something indistinct. Mei’s phone won’t turn on. She kneels, shaking.

“I – need…” He coughs, then pushes himself up on a shaking arm, face ashen. “No, no,” he says when both of them try to gently push him back down. He blinks incessantly, looking around as if he’s afraid. Mei shoots a desperate glance at Angélique, who is muttering under her breath, eyes focused on the man. She can’t really guess his age – his hair is dark, but streaked with silver, and his hazel eyes are surprisingly clear, yet his skin seems frail.

“Sir, please stay seated,” she tries, because it’s obvious he’s trying to stand up, and he really, _really_ shouldn’t be doing that, that much is clear. _Why won’t her phone work_? “I’m going to go to the back and call an ambulance, alright?”

He turns to her. “No! No, I…” Looking between her and Angélique, the man picks his briefcase up. He clutches it to his chest.

When Mei stands up, one of the man’s arms shoots out, faster than she would have guessed was possible. He takes hold of her wrist and tugs her back down, breathing speeding up again.

“Hey,” Angélique says, interrupting her muttering. “She’s trying to help.”

“Help.” He looks down at his briefcase, then glances anxiously at the door, and finally at Angélique. “Yes. Of course.”

“Yes,” Mei tries gently, “so please let me go—”

He scrambles to his knees and thrusts the briefcase at Angélique, who nearly falls over when it is pushed against her chest. Somehow, in the second that Mei takes to reach out and steady her, the old man has hauled himself up by the heavy wooden table. He breathes with difficulty as he leans against it.

“I’ll be—” He coughs dryly. His eyes flick to the street. “Yes. Take care – of this.”

“Sir!” Angélique calls when he starts stumbling towards the exit, mumbling as he goes. She has her arms wrapped around the briefcase, trembling.

Yet, for some reason, neither of them move to follow the old man, not until he has exited the coffee shop. A loud _crack_ echoes through the street when the two of them make it outside, and the man is nowhere to be seen. Angélique curses under her breath. Mei pushes her fingers into her hair, tugging some of her braid loose.

“What… Just happened?” she asks.

Angélique just shakes her head, curls dancing with the movement. Her thoughts seem far away.

“Should we take that to the police?” Mei gestures at the briefcase. It has an old-fashioned lock, but seems fairly new otherwise, made of shiny, unblemished black leather.

“I, ah…” Angélique holds the case out at arm’s length as if she hadn’t noticed she was holding it. “Maybe? Maybe that man will come back for it?”

Mei doesn’t really think he will, but there is hardly a protocol for things like these. Peak has a lost & found box, but it hasn’t ever contained anything more than some keys, a wallet and maybe a stuffed animal or two. She fiddles with the end of her braid, brow furrowing.

“So then, we leave it here for the moment?” she proposes. _She’s_ not going to take the thing home, that much she’s certain of. This all feels way too much like the beginning of one of those bad spy movies her best friend is always watching, and being caught up in one of those is not how she intends to spend the rest of her summer.

Angélique nods her agreement, so the two of them quickly put the briefcase in the back of the coffee shop. Mei puts the chairs back in their original positions. It’s almost as if nothing out of the ordinary has happened at all.

“Well,” says Angélique, sitting down on one of the chairs. She’s holding her iced cappuccino, which is by now mostly water. “This isn’t how I expected my evening to go.”

“No, I can agree with that.”

“I should… I should head home. Will you be here tomorrow? I can come by to see what to do with that briefcase, if it’s still here.”

“I’ll be here until about three,” Mei confirms, trying not to grin at the prospect of seeing Angélique more than twice a week, whatever the circumstances.

“Alright.” She takes a deep breath and stands up. “Alright, I’ll see you then.”

Mei smiles despite herself. “See you.”

She hopes she doesn’t imagine the wink as the woman walks towards the darkened street.

* * *

The next day turns out quite different than she was hoping.

Angélique rushes into Peak just before three in the afternoon, looking harried. Mei sighs, because she knows why the woman is here.

“Hey,” she starts, “did you…”

“Yeah.” Mei bites her lip and glances around. “Hold on for a minute or two, okay? I’m almost done.”

Angélique nods and waits anxiously by the end of the counter as Mei goes to the back of the shop to take her apron and work shirt off, putting them in her bag. The black briefcase seems to be mocking her from the corner of the room. After some hesitation, she decides to take it with her.

When she heads back, Angélique is waving off one of her coworkers trying to take her order. The nose of her sandal is tapping against the counter restlessly. She’s dressed differently than she usually is, in a short blue sundress with a flower pattern rather than the comfortable long pants and cotton shirts Mei has grown to expect. Maybe she didn’t have to work today. She looks nice.

“It’s him, isn’t it?” she asks without preamble when she sees Mei. Mei pulls out her phone, which has been working perfectly fine since the old man left last night, and opens her news app, pulling up the article that made her drop her tea in shock this morning.

“ _Man found dead in Wildrose Park_ ,” she reads. There is no name yet known – not that it would have helped them recognize the man – but the vague description _matches_. Most strikingly, on the blurry photo accompanying the article, the police are surrounding someone in a bright red jacket and checkered pants. It can hardly be anyone but the old man who left them with his briefcase. Mei feels her heart drop again when she sees the picture.

“I read it in the newspaper this morning,” Angélique says quietly, steering both of them out of the coffee shop and into the bustle of the narrow old town cobblestone street. Tourists chatter around them, pointing at the buildings and taking pictures. “I don’t even know what to think! It’s so weird, he was just _here_ yesterday evening, and now he’s…” She trails off, shakes her head.

“I know.” Mei can’t help but think if they could have helped him, if he would still be alive if her phone had just turned on, or if they had followed him into the street sooner.

“They think he was – killed, don’t they?” Angélique asks, lowering her voice. Mei shivers in spite of the summer heat, but nods. “So what do _we_ do?”

The briefcase. Mei stares at the old, empty building across from the coffee shop without really seeing anything, lost in thought. It shouldn’t be difficult. They should just take it to the police. It might hold a clue to finding out what happened to the man. She tells Angélique as much. To her surprise, the woman shakes her head. Her dark curls, loose for once, tumble around her bare shoulders.

“What?”

“Well, I guess we should, but I just…” She seems to hesitate over her next words. “He told us to look after it, right? What if he was killed _because of_ that briefcase?”

“All the more reason to go to the police,” Mei replies. The briefcase in question feels heavy in her hand. She puts it on the ground, clamping it between her calves.

“But why didn’t he go to the police himself? What if it’s dangerous?” She waves her hands around, but her voice is still low.

“You’re too enthusiastic about this.”

“I’m not _enthusiastic_ ,” Angélique retorts, “I’m curious. I just want to know what’s inside of it, alright? And once we know and it’s not dangerous, we can still take it to the police.”

Mei tugs the elastic out of her braid and starts running her fingers through the strands to loosen it while she thinks. Sure, she’s curious as well, but wouldn’t they be seen as accomplices somehow, if they only brought the case to the police days later? Then again, maybe they would already be regarded as such _now_. Or maybe she should stop letting Yong-Soo convince her to have movie nights.

“Mei?”

She looks up at Angélique, realizing that this is probably the first time she has used her actual name. Angélique seems to realize as well, and grins. Her eyes _sparkle_. It’s adorable, which is just unfair.

“Alright,” Mei concedes, looking away. “Alright. I live close by… We can go there.” She’d rather not open the mysterious briefcase right in the middle of the street, or even in the coffee shop.

Luckily, Angélique simply nods and picks the briefcase up, and so they trudge up the street, letting the throng of tourists guide them to the river and across the bridge.

“Where do you live?” Angélique asks, sounding curious.

“Right down this street. It’s technically the edge of Skog Town,” Mei replies, gesturing at the high-rise farther off. Skog Town is one of the newer parts of Havenbridge, having been built about a century ago on land won from the sea. There’s a lot of quaint shops on the boulevard, but the rest of town is rather bland, if she’s honest. She likes working in the narrow, medieval streets of the old center.

Angélique hums happily, seemingly unbothered by the briefcase; she’s even swinging it back and forth a little. Nothing inside makes a sound, and despite herself, Mei starts to speculate about what might be in it. What if it’s full of money? Do people actually do that in real life, fill briefcases with money, or is that Yong-Soo’s movies talking again? It’s probably just boring papers, she tells herself. The old man was just a little… Delirious.

Then again, he was _killed_ , not far from here. Mei can see Wildrose Park from her windows, a beacon of green stretching around the old town until it encounters the messily stacked buildings of Lonsin, the artists’ district. She shivers, again.

Only when the two of them have made their way to Mei’s building and are waiting for the elevator in the lobby, does she realize _she has invited Angélique into her home_. She tries to remember if there is anything she should be embarrassed about out in the open. Probably not. She’s pretty tidy. Nevertheless, she fidgets with the edge of her top the whole ride up, until they reach the eighteenth floor and walk into the narrow hall.

Angélique hovers behind Mei while she opens her front door. She catalogues the hall of her apartment. Tidy. Alright.

Into the living room. Mei quickly nudges a stray manga underneath the loveseat, even if Angélique seems more interested in the view from the window than the room itself. She puts the briefcase down on the small dining table, carefully, and looks out over the city. Mei counts herself lucky. Sure, her apartment is way too tiny for the rent that she pays, but at least she has the view. Wildrose Park and the old town on one side, the mountains far in the distance, and if she stands close to the window and looks at the other side, she can see the ocean stretching out.

She stands next to Angélique, who is smiling.

“You have a good place,” the woman says, turning to Mei. “I look out over this alley from my apartment. Pretty sure they deal drugs out there.”

“At least you’ll know where to go,” Mei says absentmindedly, then stutters. Oh, _god_ , that was a Yong-Soo grade joke. She’s going to beat his—

But Angélique is laughing, nodding with amusement. Mei relaxes. She’ll find another reason to kick her best friend’s ass, no doubt, but he’s safe for now.

“Where do you live exactly?” she asks.

“Why? Want to buy some drugs?” Angélique grins, then points vaguely out of the window. “I live in Lonsin.”

Somehow, that makes sense. Mei hums. Is she an artist, she wonders. Maybe she’ll have the chance to find out when this is all done with – they seem to be getting along pretty well so far.

“Alright, let’s do this!” Angélique is saying, putting her hands on the table and squinting at the lock on the briefcase. Right. There’s that.

Before Mei can start suggesting that maybe they should just leave the thing be and take it to the police right now, Angélique has bent over even more, until her hair obscures the lock. Mei can see her fumbling with it a little, and hears some vague mumbling, but then the woman is standing up straight with a triumphant grin, and the lock is _open_.

“Don’t worry, I’m not a criminal,” Angélique says when she catches Mei’s incredulous look.

“That’s exactly what a criminal would say.”

She smiles. “Fair enough. But really, I’m not. You just pick up some strange skills when you go to boarding school for six years, is all.”

Like _lock-picking_ , Mei wants to ask, and also _boarding school, really_ , but Angélique puts the briefcase down and flips it open slowly, and despite everything, Mei’s curiosity gets the better of her, so she scuttles closer to take a look.

It’s not papers. Luckily, it’s not money or drugs or whatever else her weird mind has come up with so far either. _Severed limbs_ , brain, really?

“What’s _that_?” Mei asks under her breath, staring at the odd… It seems to be a concave mirror set in iron, without a handle of any sort. There are indents along the sides of the iron cast, as if it is meant to fit somewhere. It’s about the size of a man’s hand.

“A magical mirror?” Angélique quips, but her voice is hushed too.

“Of course.” Mei spots something else tucked against the side, and laughs nervously. “And that’s a magic wand.”

“What?” Angélique says, voice raised again. Mei points at the smooth wooden stick. “Oh, m— _God_.”

And then she _picks it up_.

“What are you _doing_?” Mei hisses, worrying about fingerprints while Angélique twirls the stick around between her fingers, face concentrated. Oh, god, they can’t take it to the police now, can they? They had no reason to open it, did they? _Did they_? Maybe they can spin a story—

“Look at this,” Angélique says. She is pointing the stick at a notebook at the bottom of the briefcase, that Mei didn’t see before. It’s worn-out; the cover has fallen off, and bookmarks off all kinds are stuck between the pages. Receipts, pages from books, sticky notes, even old photographs. Scrawled on the front page, over all kinds of notes, is an address in black marker. _49 Kearney Place_. Is that here in Havenbridge?

“That’s in Lonsin,” Angélique answers the unspoken question. “Probably a shop, Kearney Place is smack-dab in the middle of the market.”

Mei realizes that they have a choice now. They can make up a story about why they wanted to open the briefcase – to check if there was an address, maybe? – and take it to the police, _or_ they can throw all caution to the wind and have the YA novel-worthy adventure she’s wanted to have for all 22 years of her life. Well, that might be optimistically put, she reckons, it’s probably not going to be all that exciting, but it’s the thought that counts.

“What should we do?” she asks Angélique, who has quietly put the ‘magic wand’ back.

“I really want to check that place out,” Angélique says, looking kind of guilty.

“We shouldn’t get involved,” Mei says halfheartedly. But _god_ , she wants to know where this leads.

“Don’t tell me you’re not curious.”

She rakes her fingers through her hair. “I… Well, yes. Alright! Alright, let’s go see what is at that address, but if it’s some sort of drugs lab, I’m going to the police.”

Angélique laughs, a tad nervously. “Agreed.”

* * *

Lonsin Town has always fascinated Mei. As soon as she and Angélique step out of the underground station, it seems as though they have entered a different world altogether. Even though Lonsin Market is officially still a ways off, there are already vendors crowding the medieval streets, yelling to be heard over several different musicians playing – some better than others. It smells like a not particularly appealing mix of sweaty tourists, grease wafting from a food cart by the stairs of the station, and… Mei eyes a stain on the wall distrustfully. Alright.

Both of them hold tight to their bags, in which the items from the old man’s briefcase now sit, divided up between them. Mei is still trying to come up with a way to explain that to the police, should it be needed, when they reach the market, which is the main attraction of this part of Havenbridge. The market stems from the time this truly was an artists’ district, but sells all kind of knickknacks nowadays, from clothes to paintings to antiquities and musical instruments - if you can name it, someone in Lonsin is bound to have it.

Including drugs, apparently. Mei huffs a laugh, shaking her head when Angélique shoots her a questioning look over her shoulder.

Angélique is leading the way, knowing where they are going even through the teeming crowd. Mei just follows her distinctive curls and tries not to jostle anyone, mumbling the occasional apology when she inevitably does. No one seems to mind.

“Kearney Place!” Angélique announces eventually, coming to a stop and waiting for Mei to catch up. “What was the number again? 49?”

“Yeah.”

They walk along the edge of the small, crowded place. The buildings flanking it are mostly souvenir shops, with some workshops and other stores. Mei notices that the first floor seems to be residential. She wonders if Angélique lives in a place like that. It must be terribly noisy, but maybe you get used to that.

“Mei, I think this is 49!”

Mei worms her way through the crowd and finds Angélique in front of a small shop with a window full of… _Things_. Shimmery things and moving things and odd little metal constructions that are sort of mesmerizing. An old-fashioned wooden signboard next to the door proclaims its name to be ‘Dragon’s Den’. It seems fitting.

“Well…” Mei shakes her hair over her shoulders. It’s hot here, with all those people around. “This doesn’t seem to be a drugs lab, does it?”

“Only one way to find out,” says Angélique. She shoots a glance at Mei, who nods, and then the two of them enter the shop.

It is surprisingly quiet inside. The air is cool. Just a few tourists shuffle among the towering shelves, talking in a language Mei doesn’t know.

“Wow,” Angélique breathes as they take in their surroundings. Every inch of the shop seems to be covered in oddities. There is an entire shelf dedicated to antique board games, at least three with old books. Some things make tiny noises, whirring and buzzing as they are moved as if by an unseen force. There’s plenty of artwork too. It seems more genuine than most things being sold around Lonsin, but then again – Mei doesn’t know much about art. She _is_ very interested in a shelf containing what seems to be old doctor’s equipment, including some things she’s never seen before.

“Oh, that’s cool!” Angélique says, looking at the same shelf over her shoulder. “Glad we don’t have to use those things anymore.”

She says it as though _she_ would be the one doing the examining, and Mei wants to ask about that, but she’s interrupted by a spindly man erupting from between the _stuff_ and welcoming them with a flourish.

“My name is Dragos Borisov, keeper of this humble shop,” he says, bowing ever so slightly at the waist. Mei smothers a giggle into her hand, because the image is sort of ruined by the fact that the man is wearing a bright red t-shirt with a cartoony bat on it and ripped jeans, not to mention the rather prominent lisp in his speech. He grins knowingly at her. “How can I help you?”

“Well…” They share a glance. They haven’t actually thought this far ahead.

Dragos raises his thin eyebrows.

“We’ve… We’ve got these things we’d like you to look at!” Angélique bursts, opening her bag and taking the mirror out. They wrapped it in some cloth, which she carefully unwinds. Mei reluctantly takes out the ‘magic wand’ and holds it out, because the shopkeeper seems more than interested in looking at their ‘things’. Mei doesn’t see why Angélique thought the stick was anything more than a fancy stick, if she’s honest. It doesn’t have any sort of engraving or anything.

“A wand,” Dragos starts, then glances at the mirror, and Angélique, whose gaze has turned very intent, “ _is_ what I would call this! Certain, ah, people believe those have magic powers.”

“Ha, you were right, Mei!” Angélique says, and though Mei feels as though she missed something, she smiles and nods.

“Now, this mirror… I’ve seen something like this before.” He pauses, biting his tongue as he thinks. “Ah! Did Mr Horatio send you? He’s always sending his students here.”

A quick glance at Angélique tells Mei that she’s just as confused as her. Alright, _well_ , time to go all the way into this strange thing they seem to be getting themselves into.

“He did,” Mei says, shooting Angélique a smile. She gestures at the mirror. “It’s important that we figure out what this is.”

To her relief, that seems to be the right thing to say, because Dragos grins widely, touching his tongue to his front teeth, and gestures them further into the maze-like shop. It seems so much smaller on the outside – Mei can’t even see the door anymore.

“I haven’t seen the man himself for a while now,” Dragos is saying as he ducks behind a surprisingly modern, glass-cased counter, “but it wouldn’t be the first time he disappears for a while. Still, I’d really appreciate it—” He heaves a plastic bag from underneath the counter— “if you could give this to him, alright? It’s just gonna gather dust around here.”

“Sure?” Angélique says. Mei peers into the plastic bag, which seems to contain mostly books.

“As for that mirror… I honestly don’t know. Usually, the things Mr Horatio sends me are actually not antique at all, so you two must be a special case. Better figure it  out yourselves, I suppose.”

They both start to protest, but the shopkeeper shushes them, saying, “I promise I’ll look into it.” He produces a business card out of seemingly nowhere and tells them to call if they need him.

“But what if you find out more about the mirror?” Mei asks. “How will you reach us?”

“I’ll just call Mr Horatio, yes?”

With no other choice, they hum vague agreements, and are sent away with a good luck from Dragos Borisov and a bag full of books and magazines. Mei pulls one of the former out when they are out in Kearney Place, staggering with the sudden noise and heat.

“ _Prophecies Of The Mountains_ ,” she reads from the leather-bound cover. “Angélique?”

“Yeah?”

“What are we getting ourselves into?”

She laughs nervously and sits down on a marginally less dirty-looking bit of street, her back against the wall of Dragon’s Den.

“That, Mei, is a mystery. But I want to know.”

Mei can only agree.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ALSO FEATURING  
> Dragos Borisov-Rotaru - Romania  
> Marco Horatio - Rome
> 
> The most prominent real-life inspirations for the parts of the city in this chapter are London, Warsaw and Prague. See if you can match them u p


End file.
